International Leadership: India

Ashley and Amanda with their homestay mother

July 16th was full of strong emotions and point of views, as the international leadership program connected with Tibetans, their inner selves and other people within our group. We started our day meeting up at the Peace Cafe, from there we walked to our first yoga session, which i was late to by the way. Although I'm not flexible, i found it ease reenacting most of the positions our yoga instructor presented to us. After a 30 to 45 minutes session, we then had a chance to get more in depth with something of our interest, such as tongka paintings, tabla(drumming), cooking, medicine, Buddhism and Tibetan language. Jazzminn, Felicia and I choose medicine. Therefore, we visited a hospital facility to explore how Tibetans produce medicine and what methods were used to determine a person's illness. It was very exciting to see the different resources used to make medicine at the Tibetan Medicine Museum and the routine of a regular check up at the clinic. I also found it interesting how the museum, the clinic, the pharmacy, the university of medicine and doctor's/worker's homes was all compacted in one little area. You know i racked up on the health/beauty products! Thanks to Jazzminn, i felt more comfortable trying Tibetan medicine. Thanks to my group leaders, we had the opportunity to do service learning, which was exchanging conversation with Tibetans to build up their English. It felt wonderful knowing that one conversation can make a positive change as well as a powerful connection. And thanks to everyone in the international leadership program for opening up to each other and building a stronger connection than before. Our group council was really beneficial to our growth on trust and companionship!

Ashley